This invention relates generally to a hybrid factor VIII having human and animal factor VIII amino acid sequence or having human factor VIII and non-factor VIII amino acid sequence and methods of preparation and use thereof.
Blood clotting begins when platelets adhere to the cut wall of an injured blood vessel at a lesion site. Subsequently, in a cascade of enzymatically regulated reactions, soluble fibrinogen molecules are converted by the enzyme thrombin to insoluble strands of fibrin that hold the platelets together in a thrombus. At each step in the cascade, a protein precursor is converted to a protease that cleaves the next protein precursor in the series. Cofactors are required at most of the steps.
Factor VIII circulates as an inactive precursor in blood, bound tightly and non-covalently to von Willebrand factor. Factor VIII is proteolytically activated by thrombin or factor Xa, which dissociates it from von Willebrand factor and activates its procoagulant function in the cascade. In its active form, the protein factor VIIIa is a cofactor that increases the catalytic efficiency of factor IXa toward factor X activation by several orders of magnitude.
People with deficiencies in factor VIII or antibodies against factor VIII who are not treated with factor VIII suffer uncontrolled internal bleeding that may cause a range of serious symptoms, from inflammatory reactions in joints to early death. Severe hemophiliacs, who number about 10,000 in the United States, can be treated with infusion of human factor VIII, which will restore the blood""s normal clotting ability if administered with sufficient frequency and concentration. The classic definition of factor VIII, in fact, is that substance present in normal blood plasma that corrects the clotting defect in plasma derived from individuals with hemophilia A.
The development of antibodies (xe2x80x9cinhibitorsxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cinhibitory antibodiesxe2x80x9d) that inhibit the activity of factor VIII is a serious complication in the management of patients with hemophilia. Autoantibodies develop in approximately 20% of patients with hemophilia A in response to therapeutic infusions of factor VIII. In previously untreated patients with hemophilia A who develop inhibitors, the inhibitor usually develops within one year of treatment. Additionally, autoantibodies that inactivate factor VIII occasionally develop in individuals with previously normal factor VIII levels. If the inhibitor titer is low enough, patients can be managed by increasing the dose of factor VIII. However, often the inhibitor titer is so high that it cannot be overwhelmed by factor VIII. An alternative strategy is to bypass the need for factor VIII during normal hemostasis using factor IX complex preparations (for example, KONYNE(copyright), Proplex(copyright)) or recombinant human factor VIIa. Additionally, since porcine factor VIII usually has substantially less reactivity with inhibitors than human factor VIII, a partially purified porcine factor VIII preparation (HYATE:C(copyright)) is used. Many patients who have developed inhibitory antibodies to human factor VIII have been successfully treated with porcine factor VIII and have tolerated such treatment for long periods of time. However, administration of porcine factor VIII is not a complete solution because inhibitors may develop to porcine factor VIII after one or more infusions.
Several preparations of human plasma-derived factor VIII of varying degrees of purity are available commercially for the treatment of hemophilia A. These include a partially-purified factor VIII derived from the pooled blood of many donors that is heat- and detergent-treated for viruses but contain a significant level of antigenic proteins; a monoclonal antibody-purified factor VIII that has lower levels of antigenic impurities and viral contamination; and recombinant human factor VIII, clinical trials for which are underway. Unfortunately, human factor VIII is unstable at physiologic concentrations and pH, is present in blood at an extremely low concentration (0.2 xcexcg/ml plasma), and has low specific clotting activity.
Hemophiliacs require daily replacement of factor VIII to prevent bleeding and the resulting deforming hemophilic arthropathy. However, supplies have been inadequate and problems in therapeutic use occur due to difficulty in isolation and purification, immunogenicity, and the necessity of removing the AIDS and hepatitis infectivity risk. The use of recombinant human factor VIII or partially-purified porcine factor VIII will not resolve all the problems.
The problems associated with the commonly used, commercially available, plasma-derived factor VIII have stimulated significant interest in the development of a better factor VIII product. There is a need for a more potent factor VIII molecule so that more units of clotting activity can be delivered per molecule; a factor VIII molecule that is stable at a selected pH and physiologic concentration; a factor VIII molecule that is less apt to cause production of inhibitory antibodies; and a factor VIII molecule that evades immune detection in patients who have already acquired antibodies to human factor VIII.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a factor VIII that corrects hemophilia in a patient deficient in factor VIII or having inhibitors to factor VIII.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide methods for treatment of hemophiliacs.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a factor VIII that is stable at a selected pH and physiologic concentration.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a factor VIII that has greater coagulant activity than human factor VIII.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a factor VIII against which less antibody is produced.
The present invention provides isolated, purified, hybrid factor VIII molecules and fragments thereof with coagulant activity including hybrid factor VIII having factor VIII amino acid sequence derived from human and pig or other non-human mammal (together referred to herein as xe2x80x9canimalxe2x80x9d); or in a second embodiment including a hybrid equivalent factor VIII having factor VIII amino acid sequence derived from human or animal or both and amino acid sequence having no known sequence identity to factor VIII (xe2x80x9cnon-factor VIII amino acid sequencexe2x80x9d), preferably substituted in an antigenic and/or immunogenic region of the factor VIII, is described. One skilled in the art will realize that numerous hybrid factor VIII constructs can be prepared including, but not limited to, human/animal factor VIII having greater coagulant activity than human factor VIII (xe2x80x9csuperior coagulant activityxe2x80x9d); non-immunogenic human/equivalent factor VIII; non-antigenic human/equivalent or human/animal factor VIII; non-immunogenic human/animal or human/equivalent factor VIII having superior coagulant activity; non-antigenic human/animal or human/animal/equivalent factor VIII having superior coagulant activity; non-immunogenic, non-antigenic human/equivalent or human/equivalent/animal factor VIII; and non-immunogenic, non-antigenic human/animal/equivalent factor VIII having superior coagulant activity.
The hybrid factor VIII molecule is produced by isolation and recombination of human and animal factor VIII subunits or domains; or by genetic engineering of the human and animal factor VIII genes.
In a preferred embodiment, recombinant DNA methods are used to substitute elements of animal factor VIII for the corresponding elements of human factor VIII, resulting in hybrid human/animal factor VIII molecules. In a second preferred embodiment, recombinant DNA methods are used to replace one or more amino acids in the human or animal factor VIII or in a hybrid human/animal factor VIII with amino acids that have no known sequence identity to factor VIII, preferably a sequence of amino acids that has less immunoreactivity with naturally occurring inhibitory antibodies to factor VIII (xe2x80x9cnonantigenic amino acid sequencexe2x80x9d) and/or is less apt to elicit the production of antibodies to factor VIII (xe2x80x9cnon-immunogenic amino acid sequencexe2x80x9d) than human factor VIII. An example of an amino acid sequence that can be used to replace immunogenic or antigenic sequence is a sequence of alanine residues.
In another embodiment, subunits of factor VIII are isolated and purified from human or animal plasma, and hybrid human/animal factor VIII is produced either by mixture of animal heavy chain subunits with human light chain subunits or by mixture of human heavy chain subunits with animal light chain subunits, thereby producing human light chain/animal heavy chain and human heavy chain/animal light chain hybrid molecules. These hybrid molecules are isolated by ion exchange chromatography.
Alternatively, one or more domains or partial domains of factor VIII are isolated and purified from human or animal plasma, and hybrid human/animal factor VIII is produced by mixture of domains or partial domains from one species with domains or partial domains of the second species. Hybrid molecules can be isolated by ion exchange chromatography.
Methods for preparing highly purified hybrid factor VIII are described having the steps of: (a) isolation of subunits of plasma-derived human factor VIII and subunits of plasma-derived animal factor VIII, followed by reconstitution of coagulant activity by mixture of human and animal subunits, followed by isolation of hybrid human/animal factor VIII by ion exchange chromatography; (b) isolation of domains or partial domains of plasma-derived human factor VIII and domains or partial domains of plasma-derived animal factor VIII, followed by reconstitution of coagulant activity by mixture of human and animal domains, followed by isolation of hybrid human/animal factor VIII by ion exchange chromatography; (c) construction of domains or partial domains of animal factor VIII by recombinant DNA technology, and recombinant exchange of domains of animal and human factor VIII to produce hybrid human/animal factor VIII with coagulant activity; (d) creation of hybrid human/animal factor VIII by replacement of specific amino acid residues of the factor VIII of one species with the corresponding unique amino acid residues of the factor VIII of the other species; or (e) creation of a hybrid equivalent factor VIII molecule having human or animal amino acid sequence or both, in which specific amino acid residues of the factor VIII are replaced with amino acid residues having no known sequence identity to factor VIII by site-directed mutagenesis.
The determination of the entire DNA sequence encoding porcine factor VIII set forth herein has enabled, for the first time, the synthesis of full-length porcine factor VIII by expressing the DNA encoding porcine factor VIII in a suitable host cell. Purified recombinant porcine factor VIII is therefore an aspect of the present invention. The DNA encoding each domain of porcine factor VIII as well as any specified fragment thereof, can be similarly expressed, either by itself or in combination with DNA encoding human factor VIII to make the hybrid human/porcine factor VIII described herein. Furthermore, porcine VIII having all or part of the B domain deleted (B-domainless porcine fVIII) is made available as part of the present invention, by expression DNA encoding porcine fVIII having a deletion of one or more codons of the B-domain.
Some embodiments of hybrid or hybrid equivalent factor VIII have specific activity greater than that of human factor VIII and equal to or greater than that of porcine factor VIII. Some embodiments of hybrid or hybrid equivalent factor VIII have equal or less immunoreactivity with inhibitory antibodies to factor VIII and/or less immunogenicity in humans or animals, compared to human or porcine factor VIII.
Also provided are pharmaceutical compositions and methods for treating patients having factor VIII deficiency comprising administering the hybrid or hybrid equivalent factor VIII.